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HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED BY

^W. ^W. H. DA-VIS,

AT

THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF DOYLESTOWN, PA.,

ls/LJ^Ti.C!TJ: 1, 1878.

When the ships of AVilliam Penn entered the Capes

of Delaware, the vast domain west of that river lay a
virghi wilderness. The few Swedes, Hollanders and Fins
who had preceded the Quaker immigrants, and were the
very advanced pickets of civilization, hugged the river
bank and the lower waters of its tributaries, and had done
little, or nothing, to break the solitude of the forest. The
great founder brought with him a charter of government
thoroughly imbued with civil and religious liberty — the

very foundation stone of a free State — which, being driven

out of the old world, he came to plant in the new.
Bucks county was settled by four distinctly marked races

VxW^fi.
"x:^^ !>
—making our population a piece of human mosaic — the
English, the German, the Welsh, and the Scotch-Irish , the
Irish Celt, a race so prolific of stout hearts and strong arms,
coming at a later period. One feature in the settlement of

our county adds greatly to its interest. The early immi-

grants came as religious colonists, more intent on securing

"freedom to worship God" than worldly gain. These

several races have clung to the faith of their fathers with

wondertul tenacity. The English Quaker is still guided

by George Fox's "Inner Light" ; the German Lutheran
and Reformed believe what Luther taught ; the Scotch-
Irish Presbyterian holds fast to Calvin, and the Welsh
Baptist, as of old, clings to his saving ordinance.

The settlement of new countries is governed by a law

as well defined as that of commerce or finance. From
the time the founders of the human race went abroad to

people the wilderness down to the present day, civiliza-

tion has invariably traveled up the valleys of rivers and

their tributaries, while wealth, developed bj labor and
capital, has as invariably flowed down these same valleys

to the sea. This law was observed by our Bucks county

ancestors. Landing upon the bank of the beautiful Dela-

ware, they gradually extended up its valley and the val-

leys of the Pennepack,the Poquessing, and the Neshaminy

into the interior. Turning their fa-jes to the west, they

plunged into the unbroken wilderness, as it' they had

early premonition that the march of emj)irc would be
toward the setting sun. Year after year this c(;lumn of
English Quakers advanced like an army with banners,
leveling the forest, pushing i)ack the Indian, building

cabins and meeting-houses, an 1 filling savage haunts with

 3

all the appliances of civilized life. By the close of the

century, Bristol, our only sea-port, was a chartered

borough Penn had pointed out the site for his new
;

town in the woods by Newtown creek, and the townstead

of Wrightstown was laid out and parcelled among the
settlers. Before a generation of years had rolled away
settlers were quite numerous in all the townships below

the present geographical centre of the county, and shortly

after the language, manners and customs of the Rhine

were transferred to the Upper Delaware, the Tohickon,
and the Lehigh.
But these English civilizers were not allowed to do
their great work alone, for other peoples claimed the right

to assist in planting free government and a free church

in this western wilderness. In the meantime, the Ger-

mans, the Welsh, and the Scotch-Irish had heard of the
fair commonwealth being established west of the Dela-

ware, and they swarmed across the Atlantic to enjoy its

blessings. The Germans followed closely upon the heels

of the English, who had hardly seated themselves upon
the Delaware, when the language of Luther was heard on
the Schuylkill. They began to come early in the last

century ; a steady stream setting up the valley of the

Perkiomen through Montgomery, then Philadelphia,
county, and in a few years it spread across the country to

the Delaware and the Lehigh. I'he Welsh Baptists fol-

lowed the same route a little later in the century, and

leaping across the county line, they took undisputed pos-
session of Hilltown and New Britain. These settlers

struck the English Quakers coming up from the Delaware

in the flank, about the line of Doylestown and Plumstead
and stranga as it may seem, it is novertheless true, that
the English column halted in ita march when it came in

contact with tiie Germans and the Welsh, as if these rival

civilizations could not flourish on the same soil. A small

colony ofQuakers, coming up through Montgomery county,
settled in Richland and the western part of Springfield,
but the Germans confined them within narrow limits. The
Scotch-Irish settlers came into the county mainly in
family groups, settling in small numbers in several town-
ships, and were the founders of Presbyterianism both in

the state and county. In the early part of the last cen-
tury several families of Hollanders came to the county
from Long and Staten Islands, and settled in North and
Southampton, Warminster and Bensalem. Their de-
scendants now form a considerable portion of the popula-

tion of that section, and the men especially are noted

for their large size.

The Welsh Baptists and the English Quakers, the most

numerous branches of the Bucks county colonists, have

not held their own against the aggressive Germans. The
latter have seized upon all the upper end townships ; have
become numerous in the middle districts, and are now
gradually working their way down county, threatening to

overrun the lower end, us, their ancestors overran the fair

plains of Italy. They have been coming for over a cen-

tury at a slow but steady pace, and now their advanced

pickets are planted here and there in all the lower town-
ships down to the mouth of the Poquessing. When and
M'here this great Teutonic army will halt, those who cele-

brate the next Centennial of Doylestown may be able to

answer. It must not be forgotten, that when Bucks

 5

county was settled her boundaries embraced nearly all the

state west to the Susquehanna, and north to the present
New York line, and she is the honored parent of a numer-
ous family of prosperous counties.
Middle Bucks county was settled early. John Chap-
man, the first to penetrate the \vilderness north of

Newtown, was in Wrightstown in 1684, and after a hard

life in the woods died in 1694, and was buried in the old
graveyard near Penn's Park, whither his widow followed
him in 1699. Thomas Brown, from Essex, and John
Dyer, from Gloucestershire, were among the first white
men to disturb the beavers at their dams on Pine Run, in

lower Plurastead, settling there about 1712, and thirteen

years afterward the township was organized to include
Bedminster. Buckingham, Warwick and New Britain,

the parent of Doylestown, were organized between 1703

and 1734.
William Penn, the founder of our commonwealth, and
the father of Bucks county, is not understood. His appear-
ance has been ridiculed by the artist, and his character

slandered by the historian. "We are taught from child-

hood to contemplate his person through the medium of

West's frightful painting, which represents him on his

arrival as a fat and clumsy man, and dressed in a garb

then unknown. But he was altogether a difibrent person.

He was an accomplished and elegant gentleman ; convers-

ant with the usages of the most polished society of his

times, and Iiad been reared amid luxury and educated to
all the refinement of that })olished age. He wore his

sword like a true cavalier, and, unless history belies him,

knew how to use it. His portrait at t vventy-three presents
 6
r

him to us as a remarkably handsome young man, and when

he came to Pennsylvania, at thirty-eight — hardly in his

prime, he was tall and graceful in person, with a comely

face and polished manners. He delighted in the inno-

cent pleasures of life, and was in the best sense a christian

gentleman and enlightened law-giver, far in advance of

his day and generation.

In our rapid growth and increase in material wealth,
we forget the debt we owe our Quaker ancestry. They
were the first to establish christian worship west of the

Delaware, and the early settlers organized religious meet-

ings before they were comfortably housed. They were
the earliest pioneers in education and temperance ; and
long before the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers had
given up the traffic in men, the Quakers of Bucks county
placed their seal of disapprobation on human slavery.

Whether we admit it or not, their influence permeates the

w^hole frame-work of our society, from which source the

state gets her large measure of " Justice tempered with

Mercy" ; her broad charity that has no bounds ; her con-

servatism in politics, and her love of learning.

While this historical relation is germane to the occasion,

to listen to it is not just what brought us together. We

'
are assembled to celebrate our village centennial — to

round ofi" the first century of its existence with appropri-

ate ceremonies, and tlius discharge one of the duties we

owe to the town we live in. It is just one hundred

years to-day since our beautiful village was first called by

the name it bears, and with its present spelling, so far as

careful research can inform us. It may have been so

called and written at an earlier day, but the period fixed as

'lie bir!l)-day carries our town back to its earliest infancy.

On the first day of March, 1778, John Lacey, a Quaker

Brigadier of Bucks county, who had served in Canada
and fought on the Schuylkill, issued the following " bri-
gade orders" from " camp :"

" Parole, iVc^iiJ York; countersign, Philadelphia; of-

ficer of the day to-morrow, Major Lilly. Adjutant from

Cumberland county. Detail the same as yesterday.
" The brigade to be under arms and ready to march
to-morrow morning at six o'clock ; the men to carry their

provisions, knapsacks, etc., on their backs. One wagon

belonging to each regiment to be loaded with axes and
camp kettles, to go with the brigade ; the rest to be or-

dered to go with the baggage to Doylestown : the men

not armed to go along with the baggage, and there stay
until they receive their arms ; they will receive further
orders from Major Cummings. One of the commissaries
to attend the brigade ; the other to go to Doylestown to
provide for the men sent there" Such is the charter that

gives Doylestown its name, not wrested like that at Run-

ny mede, from the hands of an unwilling giver, but issued

amid the shock of civil war. On the topographical map

of the country around Philadelphia, drawn by the engin-
eers of the British army during its occupancy of that city,

in 1777-78, the name is spelled " Doyltown," and some-

times General Lacey spelled it " Doyle Town," dividing

it into two words.

Doylestown stands upon what was known in olden
times as the " Society Lands," part of the tract of twenty

tliousand acres which William Penn, in 1682, granted to

a company of gentlemen of London, who organized as the

 8

l*p^^^^ Society of Traders." Nearly nine tliuosand acres were

taken up in middle liucks county, lying principally in the
townships of New Britain, Doylestown and Warwick, the
northeast boundary being the old Swamp road. When
this land was sold by trustees in 1726, Jeremiah Lang-
horne, of Middletown, bought two thousand acres, seven
hundred of which lay in Warwick, east and south of Court
street, then the township line, and Josepli Kirkbride, of
Falls, purcliased a considerable tract north and west of
Court street. These two non-residents held the title to

the entire Doylestown site one hundred and fifty years

ago, and upon this land our town grew up.
This locality became an objective point —long before
the most ardent settler dreamed that a village would ever
spring up upon it — because it was at the crossing of two
great roads, one leading from the Delaware to the
Schuylkill, the other from Philadelphia to the Lehigh.
The Easton road, which had already been opened up to

the Willow Grove, then called Marsh Meadows, was ex-

tended to the county line in 1722, to enable Governor
William Keith to reach his country house at Graeme
Park, and in 1723 it was continued up to John Dyer's
mill, in the woods of Plumstead, at what is now Dyers-
town, and passing over the site of Doylestown. In 1730
a road was laid out and opened from the York road at

Gentreville to what is now Gordon's corner, on the Mont-

gomery line, thus affording a continuous highway from
the Delaware to the Schuylkill. These important roads
intersected at what is now State and Main streets, and
formed the earliest crossroads at Doylestown. The
future county seat remained thus, and nothing more, for
nearly a century.
 9

The breaking up of the great tract of Society land in-

vited settlers to this vicinity. The first person to occupy
the site of Doylestown is unknown, but no doubt he was a
squatter, with dog and gun, who came to look after the

game on the wooded hills and the beavers and fishes in

the streams, and built his cabin on some sunny slope.

We have the names of several who settled in this neigh-

borhood between 1725 and 1735. Among them were

Charles Stewart, a captain in the French and Indian war,
a young man of culture from Scotland, who came before

1730, and whose descendants of the fifth generation are

still living here ; Benjamin Snodgrass, an Irish immi-

grant, whose whole family perished on the voyage except

one daughter, who married again and left numerous de-

scendants ; James Meredith, from Chester county, who
was on the Neshaminy, about Castle Valley, as early as

1730, whose son Hugh was a practicing physician at

Doylestown in 1776, and to whom the distinguished Wil-
liam M. Meredith owed kinship Walter Sliewell, who
;

came from Gloucestershire in 1732, and settled two miles

west of Doylestown, where he built Painswick Hall, still

tlie family home — the Doyles and others. Edward Doyle

— then spelled Doyl — b )Ught one hundred and fifty acres

of Joseph Kirkbride the 30th of March, 1730, on the

New Britain side of Cjurt street. In five years he was
followed by William Doyle from the north of Ireland,
probably a cousin or brother, and both were living in the
neighborhood in 1775. Joseph Fell took up a large
tract extending to Pool's Corner, northeast of the town,
and Jonathan Mason was a considerable purchaser near
New Britain church. In 1745 we find the following ad-
 10

ditional names of residents: David Thomas, William

Wells, John Marks, Thomas Adams, Thomas Morris,

Hugh Edmund, Clement Doyle, William Beal, Joseph

Barges, Nathaniel West, William Dungan, Solomon ]\lc-

Lean and David Eaton. One hundred years ago Ed-

ward and William Doyle, Joseph Kirkbride, William
aiid Robert Scott and Joseph and Samuel Flack owned
all the land the town stands upon and that immediately
adjacent. At his death, in 1742, Jeremiah Langhorne
left a life estate in three hundred and ten acres to his

negroes, Joe and Cudjo, which included all that part ot

our borough south and east of Main street.

Doylestown, like most American towns, was born of a

roadside inn and a neighboring
o DO
log house or two. An
inn to quench the thirst of the weary traveler was opened
liere by WiUiam Doyle as early as 1745, which March
he went down to Court at Newtown with a petition for

license, signed by fourteen of his neighbors, which stated

that there was no public house within five miles. The
license was renewed in 1746-48-54 and several times

afterward, and in all the thirty years that William Doyle

was the landlord of this pioneer hostelry the locality was

called "Doyle's tavern." He left the tavern between

1774 and 1776 and removed to Fhimstead, where he

died. Several localities have been assigned to this old
tavern — where the old brewery stands on West State

street, the site of R. F. Scheetz's dwelling on West

Court, but at that day out in the iields, on the ground oc-

cupied by this building, and on the opposite corner, the

site of Corson's hotel. But speculation is much at faulty

As Doyle lived in New Britain, the tavern, if opened in

 11

Ills own house, was north and west of Court street, but

ifhs built or rented a house for the inn, there can liardly
ba a doubt that it was at or near the cross roads, a neces-
sity to command the travel of both highways. What an
interesting chapter a history of the comings-in and go-

ings-out at this old inn a century and a quarter ago, with

a note of the conversations of the plain pioneer farmers,

as they warmed their shins at the bar-room fire, would

make! But it has all been swept down the tide of time.
The tavern torn down to erect tlie building in which we
are assembled was one of the oldest public houses in the

town. It was purchased by Samuel and Joseph Flack in

1773, and they kept it until 1791. The eastern end was
first built, and that next Main street was probably added
when license was granted. A child of Samuel Flack was
buried from the house the 1st of May, 1778, the day
Lacey's men fought the British at the Crooked Billet.
A few friends carried the corpse to Neshaminy graveyard
on liorseback, and while burying it could distinctly hear
the firing on the battlefield. The Fountain House is

'„ow the oldest inn^ in the town, and on that corner there
has been a tavern well nigh a century. It was kept by
Charles Stewart in 179|, and there the Bethlehem stages
stopped for dinner ; but it fell into the hands of Enoch
Harvey about 1800. Of our other public houses I have

but a word to say. The old Mansion House was first

licensed about 1813, and Clear Spring hotel was called

Bucks County Farmer in 1812, and three years after-

ward it was kept by Jacob Overholt. The Court Inn

has been a public house over half a century. The Ross
mansion was an hotel several years before the county seat
 12

was removed to Doylestown, and in 1812, when kept by

one Ilare, it was called the Indian Queen.
Tini'3 will not allow a very minute tracing of our bor-
ough's past, but I crave your indulgance while I picture
it as our fathers knew it. Its buildings at the close of

the last century can be counted on the fingers of the two

hands. "VVe start at the logscho )lhou8e, enveloped in tim-
ber, on Main street below Ashland i come up j\Iain to the

frame store house on the Lenape lot ; step across the

street to the frame on the site of Shade's tin-shop ;

passing

the two taverns, that is if we are not thirsty, we come to

Dr. Hugh Meredith's, in Armstrong's old stone house,

with frame office attached ; then across to the dwelling of

Mr. Fell, the village blacksmith, now part of the Ross

mansion, and near by sto )d the log dwelling of George

Stewart, about the site of the Litelligencer office ; then
to the Ross stable, hoary with age ; the old frame, torn

down a few years ago by N. C. James, from which the

Backs County Intelligencer was first issued ; and now re-

tracing our steps into State street, we bid adieu to our

first generation of buildings in front of the old log on the

brewery lot, which claimed the honor of the first tavern,

but whether true or not, it comes down to us with the

odor of a bad reputation. At that time the town site

was well wooded — on both sides of Main from Broad to

the Cross Keys ; on tlie north side of Court out to the
borough line ; the southern part of Main below Ashland,
and the Riale and Armstrong farms were heavily tim-
bered. As meagre as the village was, it contained the

seed that grows American towns in all parts of our

country — two taverns, a store and a smith shop. Before

 13

the century closed a new-comer was added to the popu-

ation, in the person of Enoch Harvey, the father of

Joseph and George T., a descendant of Thomas, who

settled in Upper Makefield in 1750. As he had come to

stay, he found a wife in the daughter of Charles Stewart.

When the old century turned the corner into the new,
the sleepy hamlet wakened up a little. The timber was
cat from some of the wooded slopes, and an occasional
settler came in. In 1800 Daniel and Jonathan Mc-
intosh came here from Winchester, Va., and Isaac Hall,
the father of Samuel, from New Jersey, the father build-

ing the stone house on State street where the son now
lives. In 1808 Josiah Y. Shaw came down from Plum-
stead and built tlie Gunnagan house ; and the Harvey
and Nightingale dwellings were built in 1813, the Doyles-
town bank being opened in the latter in 1832. In this
period Elijah Russell built a log house on the knoll op-
posite the Clear Spring tavern, and one Musgrave, from
Canada, built a log on Main, and a shop near by for his
son, a wheelwright. Struck Titus built the old end of
the Lyman house, torn down in 1873, where he lived and
carried on harness making in a shop that stood in Dr.
James' yard opposite. Tiie stone house of Mrs. A. J.

LaRue, at Broad and Main, was built near the same time
by Septimus Evans, the father of the late Henry S.

Evans, of West Chester, and in which a tavern was kept

many years. Doylestown had a portrait painter as early

as 1805, one Daniel Farky, a versatile genius, who, to

the limner's art, added paper-hanging and glazing.

With the new century catne increased mental activity,

and our " rude forefathers " besran to look above and be-
t» /
 14

yond mere material culture. The first newspaper ever

published in Bucks county was issued from the "Centre
House, Doylestown," by Isaac Ralston, July 25th, 1800
— The farmers' IJ'eeHi/ Gazette. Although sustained by
that sublime political doctrine, " Open to all parties, but . ,

influenced by none," it soon took its departure for that VuLOCS'

\ftM?Wdtkite<i «kkA<Vjt'\ provided for defunct news-
papers. It was followed in 1804 by The Pennsylvania
Correspondent and Farmers^ Advertiser a long name for —
a small newspaper —
the parent of the Backs County In-

telligencer. It was established by Asher Miner, a young

Connecticut Yankee, who had learned his trade at

Wilkesbarre, where he married Polly Wright, whose

father had run away with the daughter of Josiah Dyer,
of Plumstead, a third of a century before. The new ven-
tu-e in journalism met a better fate than the old. The
story is told that when young Miner came to Doylestown,
he drove down to Warrington to see the Rev. Nathaniel
Irwin, the pastor at Neshaminy, and the recognized head
of the Democratic party, and asked his support for the
paper. The good parson declined, on the ground that he
did not like Mr. M.'s politics, but the latter said he would
})ublit5h an independent paper, to whicli ^Ir. Irwin le-
plied : " Tes, you say so, but then you look toward Buck-
ingliam." This settled the quesiion. The Democrat was
started twelve years afterward, 181G. Three years of
journalistic tribulation culminated in a division of the

Demociatic i)arty, and the establishment of a rival paper,

the Bucks County Messenger^ known to history as the

" Yellow Fever Paper." In the hope of uniting the rival
interests and bringing peace within the political borders,
 15

the Messenger passed into otlier hands, and ex-Senator

Siinon Cameron, tlien a young jour just out of his time,
was invited to take charge of it. He came up in the

stage the last of December, 1820, a fellow passenger with

Mifflin, the proprietor of The Democrat^ between wliom
and the other passengers the poHtical situation was fully

and freely discussed, including Cameron's anticipated

coming, the future prospects of the rival papers, «fec. Mr.
Cameron had the prudence to keep silent, and when, ou
the arrival of the stage at Doylestown, he was known and
announced as the " new printer," there was some little

dismay in the ranks of the opposition. Mr. Cameron

issued his first number January 2d, 1821, stating in his

address to his subscribers that his paper would be "purel}'

Democrat." Shortly afterward the two papers were con-
solidated under Cameron and Mifflin, and within a year
the establishment passed into the hands of the late Gen-
eral W. T. Rogers.
The Union Academy was built in 1804, from funds
raised partly by subscription and partly by lottery. It

was first occupied in July, and the trustees invited the

Rev. Uriah DuBois, the pastor at Deep Run and a de-
scendant of the Huguenot Louis DuBois, who settled on

the Hudson in 1660, to take charge of it. The Rev-

erend Uriah was the immediate ancestor of our towns-
people who bear the name. As an inducement for par-

ents to send their children to the school in the Academy,

it was announced that "the Bethlehem and Easton mail
stages pass through the town twice a week ;" and, as win-

ter approached, the patrons were invited to meet and con-

sult on a "proper and certain" plan for furnishing the
 16

school with wood. Boarding school was kept in the

academy for many 3'cars, and several able men had charge
of it. A room in the building was set apart for religions

raeetinirs of all denominations, and in it was gathered the

nenclens of the Doylestown Presbyterian church, the first

church building being erected in 1813-15. Doylestown

remained a simple cross-roads, with a few dwellings and
other buildings along the two highways, until 1807, w'hen
Court street was opened on the line of New Britain and
Warwick, from Main street east. Broad street was laid

out in 1811, and in 1818 Court street was extended west

to State. There were no additional streets laid out until

after the borough was incorporated in 1838, and the

modern streets and avenues were opened as improvements
required, from 1865 to 1872.

The removal of the county-seat from Newtown to

Doylestown, in 1813, assured the future growth and pros-

perity of the town. At that time the population was
hardly two hundred, and we are told that eight years

afterward there were but twenty-nine dwellings in the

town, including the Academy, in which a family lived.
The removal was only made after a stubborn fight, and
the engendering of bitter feelings that required years to
assuage. As in all other movements of the day, Parson
Irwin was very active in this, and we are told that his

influence was mainly instrumental in robbing Newtown

of the county capital. He was made the subject of a char-
coal cartoon on the walls of the old court house, which
represented him in his shirt sleeves, with a rope around
the building and his body, and pulling with all his might
in the direction of Doylestown. The new court house
 17

was erected on a lot, now in the heart of the village, the

gift of Nathaniel Shewell, and court was first held in it

the 12th of May, 1813. At that time there was but one
or two buildings on both sides of Court street from the
Ross dwelling out to the borough limit. The growtli of

the town was still very gradual, and eighteen years

after it was made the county-seat there was but one build-

ing, and that a log, on the east side of Court street from
Main to the Academy.
The county-seat brought with it several new families

to the town, officers of the courts, members of the bar,

and others, whose descendants are now among the oldest

of our citizens. Among these were the Chapmans, the
Rosses, the Foxes, the Pughs, the Morrises, et al. Of
the Chapman ancestry I have already spoken, whose de-
scendant, i\.braham Chapman, long the father of our bar,

has been gathered to his fathers. The Rosses are de-

scended from Thomas, who came from Ireland in 1728

and settled in Upper Makefield, who, after a useful life,

returned to England on a visit, in 1786, and died at the

house of Lindley Murray, near York. This sturdy Qua-
ker, who loved his country better tlian his meeting in the
Revolutionary day, and who, when called before the
Wrightstown elders to be disciplined, quietly detied their

authority, saiil among his last words : "I see no cloud in

my way ; I die in peace with all men." The late Judge

Fox, the first of the family in the county, wa^ the son of
Edward Fox, who came from England or Ireland before

the Revolution, and was Auditor General of the State in

1783, when Joseph Reed was its President. The Pughs

were Welsh, Hugh Pugh, the ancestor, settling in Ches-
 18

ter county about 1725, and coming to Hilltown in Bucks

about 1750. His oldest son, John, who died in 1842,
served several sessions in the Legislature, was twice
elected to Congress, and held county offices. The Mor-
rises were English Friends, and settled in Byberry, but
were in Hilltown before 1722, where they became Bap-
tists ; and Matthias, who was a member of our bar, and
served in the Senate and in Congress, died in Doyles-
town at the early age of fifty-two. There are other
families which date their residence here from the period
of the removal of the county-seat, among which may be
mentioned the Magills, the Wigtons, the Brocks, et al.

The residence of the Vanluvanees is as old as the century.

Two years after Doylestown became the county-seat

the town was ravaged by typhus fever, one of the earlest
victims being John L. Dick, whose remains were the first to

be interred in the Presbyterian graveyard. A young

member of the bar, his intimate friend, who was with
him in his last moments, thus speaks of his death in a

letter written the same day: "My friend, John L. Dick,

died to-day at two p. m. of the typhus fever. How frail

is man Ten days aujo he was in the

! vigor fo health.

Alas, how visionary our hopes of earthly happiness ! But

two months since he married Miss Erwin, the daughter
of the richest man in the county. How soon their fond-
est anticipations of future bliss were destroyed !" Shortly
afterward the writer of the letter followed his friend to
the grave, with three other members of his family, all

dying in the same house within a few days. Neverthe-

less, He v;ho "tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," has

vouchsafed our town remarkable exemption from disease,

and its normal condition is health.
 19

Doylestovvn has never been without schools where the

liiglier branches of learning are taught. For many years
the seliool in the Academy, under tlie Rev. Uriah Dn-
Bois, monopolized the educational interest of the town
and neighborhood. About the time Mr. DuBois died,

George Murray, a Scotchman, and a graduate of Aber-

deen, w^ho had taught in New Jersey and at several points

in this State, came to Doylestown to fill the place left

vacant. He taught in the Academy until 1829, when he
opened a boarding school in his own house, on State street,

where Mr. Barber lives, and kept it until 1842. lie died
two years ago at the age of ninety-five. He was a fine

classical scholar, and so far as his government of a school

was concerned, he was a firm believer "in the old Con-
stitution," and it is not known that he ever spoiled a

child by sparing the rod. He is still remembered with

pain. The Ingham Female Seminary was incorpor-
ated in 1838, but it was not maintained as a boarding

school after 1843.

After Doylestown became the county-seat its growth
was slow for several years — in 1820 the population being
but three hundred and sixty, and only five hundred nine
years afterward. In one decade, from '40 to 'oO, the in-

crease was but ninety-four. The actual population at this

time is about two thousand, which includes an hundred or

two immediately contiguous to, but outside, the borough
limits. A visible improvement began about 1830, when
the first brick house was erected ; and in the next ten

years a number of good dwellings were built, including

some on the square opposite the court house. The in-

corporation of the town into a borough in 1838 gave it a

 20

new impetus. The town now had "borough fathers" to

look after its interests.The streets were graded, the
sidewalks paved, and other improvements made. Sev-
eral things combined to arouse the county-seat from the

Rip Van Winkle sleep into which it had fallen. One of

the most important events in the last forty years was the
opening of the Branch ot the North Penna. railroad in

1856, which gave the inhabitants an easy and rapid con-

nection with the outside world, and brought to the town
a new class of travelers. The first electric wire was run
through the town, and an office opened, in the fall of 1845

in Mr. Shade's building.

Doylestown has made her greatest strides since the

close of the civil war. In the last thirteen years there

have been many dwellings erected in the eastern and
western parts of the borough, where building lots have
been sold and streets opened. Tlie Doylestown Seminary
was built in 1866 and enlarged in 1869, and the Linden
Seminary was built in 1871. The building of the Agri-
cultural and Mechanics' Institute was erected in 1866 ;

water was introduced in 1869; the gas-works enlarged in

1873 ; and the handsome building in which we are as-

sembled, and which would do credit to any town, was

built in 1874. The beautiful monument to the memory
of the dead of the regiment Bucks county fecnt to the field

in the civil war, and which adorns the centre of the town,
was erected in the spring of 1868. Witliin the last ten

years three new churches have been erected, one at an

expense of $25,000. A number of new dwellings have

been built in the older portions of the town, and improve-
ments and adornments are being made on every hand
 21

while many of the farms in the immediate vicinity have

been cut up and pleasant villas erected thereon.
Thus we have pictured the birth, infancy, childhood

and early manhood of onr beautiful village, and we now

come to its maturer years. New Doylestown loses noth-

ing by comparison with the old. It has an intelligent

and virtuous population ; the streets are well shaded and

lighted ; has an abundant supply of pure, fresh water
the dwellings make up in solid comfort and convenience
what they lack in elegance and costly adornment;
churches, where men and women of every faith go up to
worship, "with none to molest or make them afraid."

We have skillful physicians ever ready to "heal the

ills that flesh is heir to;" well-kept hotels, and banks
where everybody well-endorsed, can borrow money, but
notes will come due, in spite of all things, and that
too often when there is not " a red " on hand to pay
with. Then we have schools, benevolent institutions, and
industrial establishments ; a public library, newspapers,
the electric wire, and other appliances ol civilized life.

Add to these a most delightful town site, on a plateau

which falls off on every side but one to winding streams
and smiling valleys at its base, with cultivated and wooded
slopes beyond, and we have a picture of the best type of
a Pennsylvania village.

The location of Dovlestown, on tlie great road from the

Forks of Delaware to Philadelphia, made it a stopping
place for stages from their earliest running. John Nich-
olaus put a line on this route in Apiil, 1792, making
weekly trips at two dollars a passenger. In 1794, Law-
rence Erb, of Easton, put on another line, at the same
 22

fare, running down on Monday and returning on Thurs-

day. A semi-weekly stage, between Bethlehem and
Philadelphia, ran through Doylestown in 1800, and the
first daily line was put on in 1828. When James Ree-
side succeeded Nicholaus in 1822, he put Troy coaches on

the road, the first used in this part of the country, which
continued to run down to the opening of the Delaware-
Belvidere railroad, in 1854. In the meantime a number
of stages were run between Doylestown and Philadelphia,
both semi-weekly and daily — the first local line that we
have knowledge of being the "Doylestown Coachee"
in 1813. There are some in the audience who remember
our later passenger coaches, which only ceased running
when the Branch of the North Penn. road was opened in
1856. Benny Clark's " High-grass" line has passed into

history, "and his soul is with the just, we trust." He

was succeeded by John Service, both famous whips in their

day. Some of my hearers cannot have forgotten how

Service was in the habit of comforting his passengers
when there was an appearance of danger in going down
hill, by saying to his horses: "Now run away and kill

another driver, won't you I" Unfortunately railroads

iiave destroyed the romance of stage-coaching, and almost
put an end to the occupation of Dick Turpin's suc-
cessors.

While Doylestown was removed from the shock of

contending; armies in the 8tru";"rle between the colonies
and Mother {;ountry, it is not unknown to Revolutionary
annals. During the trying winter of 1777-78, it was for a
time the headquarters of General Lacey, who held the
difficult command embraced between the Delaware and
 23

the Scliuylkill. Ilerc he had his depot of stores, and

liere were assembled his courts-martifil to try oifenders.

When the Continental army broke up its cantonment at

Valley Forge, in Jane, 1778, and marched to meet the

enemy at Monmouth, it passed through Doylestown.
As soon as it was known that the enemy had evacuated
Philadelphia, and was pushing for New York, Washing-
ton sent General Lee, with six brigades, in advance, on
the 18th, pa^^sing through our borough, and crossing the
Delaware at New Hope the night of the 20th. The same
day, the 18th, at six o'clock, p. m., Washington wrote to

Congress : " I shall move with the main body of the

army at five in the morning to-morrow." On the 20tli,

at four, p. m., he again wrote to Congress, and to Gen-

eral Gates, that he was within ten miles of Coryell's ferry,

now New Hope, and that he would " halt to refresh the
troops and for the night, as the weather is very rainy.

General Lee, with the six brigades, mentioned in my for-

mer letter, will reach the ferry this evening." At that

time Washington and his army — that body of soldiers

which carried the destiny of the struggling colonies on

the points of their bayonets —lay at Doylestown in a furious
rainstorm. Here the army remained until the next after-

noon, occupying three encampments — on the south side

of State street, west of Main ; on the ridge east of the

Presbyterian church, and along the New Hope pike, east

of tlie' borough mill. Washington pitched his tent near

the dwelling of Jonathan Fell, now John G. Mann's farm-

house, and General Lafayette quartered at the house
of Thomas Jones. It is related of Mrs. Jones that the

patriotic lady was so delighted with having the gallant

 34

young Frenchman for her guest that she put him to sleep

in her best bed, an honor we hope the General duly ap-

preciated. When lie got up the next morning, she wel-
comed him with a smiling face, and asked him how he
had slept over night, to which he replied, in his broken
English : "Very well, Madam, but your bed was a little

too short." The army marched from Doylestown the

afternoon of the 21st of June, and crossed the river the
next day, when Washington again wrote Congress: "I
am now in Jersey, and the troops are passing the river at

Corj'ell's, and are mostly ever."

Our town has never been deaf to the calls of patriot-

ism, and a number of her sons have met their death on

tlie battlefield. When court met on Monday, August
28th, 1814, the late Judge Fox, then a young man and
deputy Attorney-General, arose and announced that the
capital of the country was in the hands of the enemy, and
Baltimore ard Philadelphia threatened, and moved that
the court do adjourn. Upon its refusal, Mr. Fox took up
his hat and left the room, followed by the late Samuel
Hart, then associate judge, and most of the people. A
meeting was organized outside, which Mr. Fox addressed
in a spirited speech, when he returned to Newtown and
assisted to raise a company of volunteers. In a few days
William Magill, of Doylestown, recruited a company of
riflemen in the neighborhood, whose uniforms were made
up in the court house, the day before they marched, by
the young ladies of the village. I need not speak of the
way Doylestown discharged her duty in the late civil war,
for that is of too recent date to be forgotten ; but if wit-

nesses were wanting, we have them in the widow and

 :ii>

fatherless cliildren, and yon silent iiiomiment which bears

tcs!;iinon3' to the deeds of our honored dead.
If time woiikl [)crinit, it would be a pleasant duty to

call up the foims of those who in otlier days were a living

presence in onr streets, and whose culture and character
were a power in our village life. Doylestown has not
been without her notable characters, and, upon a broader
plain, some of them would have achieved great distinc-

tion. Onr bar has produced a number of men our vil-

lage annals should delight to honor. Our lawyers of the

past have sat in the council chamber and upon the bench,
and of the }>resent several wear the ermine with credit to
themselves and the profession, two occupying seats in the
highest judicial tribunals of the State and nation. Of
those who have gone to that "undiscovered country" the
poet writes about, many present remember the venerable
Chapman, the able Fox, the learned Ross, the genial
DuBois, the eloquent McDowell, and the young and
gallant Croasdale, w^ho met his death in the shock of
battle by the rolling Potomac. In all the otlier walks of
life,]our townsmen have borne equally well their part.

The Christian minister comforts the sick and the afflicted,

and leads the erring up to a better life beyond the stars

while the humane physician, the co-worker of the man of

God, in deeds of charity, spends day and night in binding

up the wounded body. We boast our skilled mechanic,
whose handiwork adorns our town on every side, and the
virtuous laborer, whose honest toil sweetens his daily
bread, and yields the wealth of the universe.

While celebrating their centennial year, the people o

Doylestown should not forget the blessings that are theirs,

 26

nor fail to return tlianks to the Giver. Their lives have

fallen in wonderfully pleasant places. They live in a

beautiful town, surrounded by a most charming country,

and far removed from the demoralizing influence of great
centres. The atmosphere is healthful and invigorating,

and our people have been preserved in a remarkable de-

gree from contagious diseases. Health is the normal
condition of all within our borders, and peace and con-
entment spread their angel wings over all. Satisfied

vrith the pleasing picture of the present, I refrain from

speaking of the future, whose story will be told by him
who fills my place an hundred years to come.
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